Review of Freedom 28

Basic specs.

The Freedom 28 is a sailboat designed by the British maritime architect Garry Hoyt.

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Hull

The hull is made of fibreglass. Generally, a hull made of fibreglass requires only a minimum of maintenance during the sailing season. And outside the sailing season, just bottom cleaning and perhaps anti-fouling painting once a year - a few hours of work, that's all.

Keel

The Freedom 28 has been built with more than one type of keel.

One option is a long keel. A long keel provide a better directional stability than a similar boat with a fin keel; on the other hand, better directional stability means also that the boat is more difficult to handle in a harbour with less space.

Another option is a fin keel. A boat with a fin keel is more manoeuvrable but has less directional stability than a similar boat with a long keel.

The boat can enter even shallow marinas as the draft is just about 0.79 - 0.89 meter (2.59 - 2.89 ft) dependent on the load. See immersion rate below.

Engine

The boat is typically equipped with an inboard Yanmar 2GMF diesel engine at 13.0 hp (9 kW).

Sailing characteristics

This section covers widely used rules of thumb to describe the sailing characteristics. Please note that even though the calculations are correct, the interpretation of the results might not be valid for extreme boats.

Stability and Safety

What is Capsize Screening Formula (CSF)?

The capsize screening value for Freedom 28 is 1.73, indicating that this boat could - if evaluated by this formula alone - be accepted to participate in ocean races.

Immersion rate

The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level. The immersion rate for Freedom 28 is about 163 kg/cm, alternatively 913 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 163 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm. Alternatively, if you load 913 lbs cargo on the boat it will sink 1 inch.

Sailing statistics

This section is statistical comparison with similar boats of the same category. The basis of the following statistical computations is our unique database with more than 26,000 different boat types and 350,000 data points.

L/B (Length Beam Ratio)

What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?

The l/b ratio for Freedom 28 is 3.00.

Compared with other similar sailboats it is more spacy than 58% of all other designs. It seems that the designer has chosen a slightly more spacy hull design.

SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)

SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)
Indicates how fast the boat is in light wind:
- Cruising Boats have ratios 10-15
- Cruiser-Racers have ratios 16-20
- Racers have ratios above 20
- High-Performance Racers have ratios above 24
Sail-area/displacement ratio (SA/D ratio): 13.54

Maintenance

Rig

If you need to renew parts of your running rig and is not quite sure of the dimensions, you may find the estimates computed below useful.

**Guiding dimensions of running rig**
Usage	Length		Diameter
Jib sheet	8.5 m	(28.0 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)
Genoa sheet	8.5 m	(28.0 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)
Mainsheet	21.3 m	(70.0 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)
Spinnaker sheet	18.8 m	(61.6 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)

Boat owner's ideas

This section shown boat owner's changes, improvements, etc. Here you might find inspiration for your boat.

Do you have changes/improvements you would like to share? Upload a photo and describe what to look for.

Finally

We are always looking for new photos. If you can contribute with photos for Freedom 28 (Hoyt) it would be a great help.

If you have any comments to the review, improvement suggestions, or the like, feel free to contact us. Criticism helps us to improve.

References

[Ref 1]: ISO 8666 Small craft — Principal data.
[Ref 3]: ISO 12215-5 Small craft — Hull construction and scantlings.